


Jealous? I Ain’t Jealous!

by Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Jeffergelica, Thomas is also really sweet, Thomas thinks he’s famous, Title is (as usual)- In The Heights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-21 18:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12463380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight/pseuds/Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight
Summary: Thomas Jefferson has a legacy. A self invented legacy, but one to keep up. And he can’t break it for anyone, not even Angelica. Not even when he desperately wants to.*Title, as always, an In The Heights quote*





	1. Chapter 1

He wasn’t usually like this.

He had always been Thomas Jefferson, that rich kid who grew up in Monticello. That guy who wears too much purple. The one with the hair. The one who everyone thought was dating James Madison. The one who never lost his class, no matter how many scrawny kids from the Caribbean wearing ponytails showed up.

But it wasn’t totally fair to judge so fast. Because he was all those things, even if some of the rumors had been started by himself. Even if he wanted to test how many people would believe that his hair was insured for ten thousand dollars, despite the fact that he’d taken that line straight out of Mean Girls.

Because… did he like James? It wasn’t definite, that’s what he told himself for a while. He told other people differently, just so that he could keep that level of classiness. Thomas Jefferson was never unsure of anything. 

But Thomas Jefferson, the kid who hated the spotlight, the one who used to cry in the bathroom during the Monticello balls, the one who would call his friends at any time if he knew they might cry, the one who once typed James Madison’s final paper at four AM because James’ little brother’s heart rate was way too fast… 

There were two Jeffersons. There was the one with a purple velvet toilet seat in his own bathroom, the one who had posters in his room back home that were signed by everyone from Kanye West to Amy Poehler.

There was also the one who sat with James in the upper bathroom of the high school, hugging him while he sobbed the day his brother’s heart rate was finally too fast, the one who baked two hundred oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on the anniversary of that little boy’s death, just because he knew James would need a distraction.

They never mixed.

Well, that was until Thomas saw Angelica for the first time.

Of course, growing up as the most wealthy family in Virginia, he would know of the daughters of Philip Schuyler, but he’d never actually met them. 

The day Angelica Schuyler walked into his life, he was a different person. It was like Thomas and Thomas were finally mixing.

He didn’t know what to do.

Especially because she hated him. Despised him, with a burning passion. Maybe that was because he always pised off Alex Hamilton, and maybe Angelica kind of used to like Alex. Maybe Alex also happened to be dating her sister. But it didn’t really matter to Thomas. She hated him.

So the only way he could think of to get her to like him was to insult her.

After all, didn’t every girl know that someone insults you when they like you?

 

It could be said that this didn’t exactly work out according to plan. Angelica left the first class they had together in a huff, back on her phone and undoubtedly informing Eliza and Peggy how awful Jefferson really was. He tried to maintain his famous swagger, but inside, he was broken. Maybe he’d gone too far?

So he tried again the next day, this time deciding to start a debate rather than make her mad. Because if he knew anything about Alex Hamilton, he would never turn down a debate, even if the class was over. And if he knew anything about Angelica Schuyler, she was the same way.

She followed him out of the class yelling.

“What don’t you understand?” she screamed, and her voice was hoarse and raspy from half an hour of yelling.

“Maybe if you explain it again, I’ll understand,” he said. 

He wasn’t trying to be sleazy. His flirting just sucked. 

Apparently, she didn’t approve. She stalked off again, black curls floating behind her.

“Damn it.” 

This was only muttered, but a few heads turned still, in shock that Thomas Jefferson, the Thomas Jefferson, had just been defeated.

“Her loss,” he proclaimed suddenly, and to no one, straightening up and striding away. The people around him instantly looked at ease.

 

It was hard, maintaining all the rumors he started. People knew now that he liked Angelica, only because he’d let it slip out. It was good publicity- you had to keep people talking, otherwise you’d drift out of their minds.

But still. 

It was hard to change who you were, not when you were this famous. But what if being your alternate self made someone not like you? And what if that person’s opinion was the only one that mattered?

He kept trying.

He followed her out of class every day, pestering her. When that didn’t work, he insulted her. Light insults, not deep stuff. It pissed her off, and that was his goal.

Her being pissed off at him was better than her not noticing him.

“Thomas,” she said one day, “why don’t you just leave me alone?” 

Thomas rolled his eyes dramatically, since there was a crowd nearby, but what he really wanted to do was to duck his head, to tell her that he wasn’t really like this.

“Haven’t you… haven’t you heard that people insult you when they like you?” Thomas muttered.

“What?”

He swore inwardly, realizing that his timidness had broken his character.

“I said, haven’t you heard that people insult you when they like you?”

“That’s a ridiculous cliche,” Angelica scoffed, turning away, curls hitting Thomas in the face.

“No,” he said softly, “no, it’s not.”

If your whole life was a lie, a character that wasn’t you… if you put on such a big show to be liked…

It had only backfired, and Thomas swore to himself that he would be himself for once.

He said it, but he knew he’d never follow through.

After all, Thomas Jefferson never lost. He never had a problem. He was Thomas, the rich legend from Monticello with purple toilet seats.Thomas, the 4 AM essay typer and the cookie baker… that Thomas wasn’t ready.

He told himself, someday. 

He was only lying more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided to add another chapter to this work, and to do that on John Laurens’ birthday (October 28th), even though he’s technically not in the story.  
> This chapter’s from Angelica’s POV... enjoy!

She had stalked away when Thomas had said that to her. His tiny speech about insults not being a cliche. 

When asked about it (because Thomas fucking Jefferson could make anyone talk), she just simply answered that she didn’t get him.

This was, of course, a lie.

It seemed like they would be perfect for each other if all they ever did was lie.

Angelica knew everything. She knew everything because, coincidentally, that little boy that James had cared so much about? His brother? That boy had been her first babysitting charge.

And she still talked to James. And James had told her. 

James told her about how it felt to always be next best in a world where your best friend is the star. 

And Angelica couldn’t sympathize. She knew Eliza could, and Peggy. But she had never been second best. 

Another reason they were the perfect match.

She was sure Thomas didn’t remember her, the little girl who had lived a street down from James Madison. The girl who had gone by Angie, who wore her hair in a ponytail and liked pink. The girl who had narrowly beaten Thomas Jefferson at every award since fourth grade. 

She was surprised he didn’t remember that.

That little boy had really started everything. She guessed Thomas didn’t remember that they had sat next to each other in the waiting room during his last surgery. He probably didn’t know that the girl in the kitchen when he had famously delivered his oatmeal chocolate chip cookies was her.

He probably didn’t remember that they had sat near each other in ninth grade art, or that she was the girl who had lied to the teacher and verified that James Madison’s final paper was written by none other than James Madison, when she knew well that it had really been Thomas.

Because as much as Thomas had two lives, so did she.

She was the small hometown girl who had grown up with people, but changed so drastically that no one knew her anymore.

And then she was the famous Angelica Schuyler, the most smart, most stunning, best at rejecting people.

She didn’t know how long she could keep it up.

And that’s why she started dating John Church. 

That’s how she became Angelica, the girl who’s dating the most boring guy in the school.

It was all about legacies, really.

She had vented about this to James over their final papers. She told him she wouldn’t reject his edits this time, but they both knew it wouldn’t work out. 

“See, Thomas is famous. I was famous, and now I’m just boring too. My sisters are both the next best. Alex Hamilton is famous for being a cynic. And you…”

“I’m famous for not being there,” James said, and she noticed him scribbling something in the margins of her paper. She leaned her head over.

“No, that’s on purpose. The claim is valid.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“But it’s valid, look it up on-,”

“Fine! Just don’t come crying to me when it’s wrong.” James scribbled over the mark and Angelica sat back, satisfied. She shifted back to the conversation.

“Famous for not being there,” she remarked, “what a crappy legacy to have.”

“Not really,” James stated, tilting his head slightly, “I think it’s kinda… symbolic.”

“Symbolic of what?”

“I dunno.”

She leaned her head back, looking at the ceiling tiles until she heard the scratch of a pen.

“That’s supposed to be there too,” she blurted out, head jerking up to read James’ note.

“You meant to put three apostrophes in the word ‘government’?” James smirked.

“I fell asleep on my laptop!” 

“Does that make it any better?”

There was a pause.

“Oh.”

“Oh yourself.”

\-------

Every time she looked at John Church, she saw Jefferson instead. 

When John put her favorite shirt in the laundry with the darks, and it came out ruined, she pictured Thomas knowing exactly how to clean it because of those purple velvet jeans.

When John forgot sugar in her sister’s birthday cake, and Peggy got food poisoning, Angelica pictured Thomas making the cake perfectly and smirking about it.

Sure, Thomas was annoying. But he was intriguing, too.

Like someone who had to be uncovered. 

 

She had secrets covering herself, too. And all she wished for was for someone to sweep them away. So everyone could see the face of the girl she really was.

The girl who did Eliza’s math homework every night for a week when James’ brother died.

But it was different, actually, since that was to get her mind off of things.

So it wasn’t really two people, so much as it was one selfish one.

Because she was selfish, she told herself.

Still.

When Thomas Jefferson started harassing her, because that’s the only word there was for it, harassing…

She could have breathed. Swept the secrets away. She could have told him that she kind of did want to go on a date sometime.

She didn’t. Only because of the guilt that ate away at her.

Selfish.

She had taken what so many people had wanted over the years. Favorite daughter, valedictorian, scholarships, awards, prettiest, most popular, smartest… 

It just worked out in her mind.

She shouldn’t have this kind of luck. And John Church would be nothing without her.

There was the selfish part again.

Scared of rejection. Scared of failure. The two things she had never done. 

But no one goes through life without facing their fears once.

Except Angelica. Because she would never fail. She would never break.

It was sickeningly like Thomas, except that she wouldn’t admit it.

It was a weakness, and Angelica Schuyler didn’t have weaknesses.


End file.
